Monday, September 23, 2013

Building a Sturdy Clothes Rack


Do any of you ever get in the spring cleaning mode in the fall?

I do.

I have been complaining about our bedroom closet for many, many years.
We do not have the luxury of a walk in closet.
A few years ago I put in a closet organizer - shelves down the middle and two hanging poles to the left (where my husband hangs his clothes) and one high hanging pole on the right (where I hang my clothes). That doesn't seem fair, does it? He gets two poles and I get one.

A closet pet peeve of mine is that the opening to the closet is a lot smaller than the actual closet. (I would like to know who designed these type of closets) So, a lot of my clothes hang back behind the wall - in the deep recesses of our little closet.
I have to stand on a small step stool (so I can reach the high pole where my clothes hang from) and peer and stretch to look at my hidden clothes. I was complaining a few weeks ago, so my husband brought me a flashlight. :o) That is all it took for me to finally go into action and do something about my problem.

I bought one of those two tiered garment racks at the store. I soon found out they were too dinky (for  lack of a better word). So, my son volunteered to build me a sturdy, steel clothes rack. I moved things around and found a spot large enough in my laundry/craft room to put it.

Here is a link to the site that inspired us. Of course, we made a few changes - we used 3/4" pipes, added the extra pole, made the poles 5 feet long and added the extension for my purses. My son demonstrated how sturdy it was by hanging from the top pole. I wouldn't advise doing this with one of those store bought racks.

To make it less costly to make, my son bought 3 - 10 foot steel poles at the store and had them cut down to size and threaded on the ends (They did this for free). He said is cost a lot less doing it this way. The pipes were black, but he scrubbed that off when he washed the finished rack.

You can paint it if you want.  I thought red would be nice. But we decided to leave ours as is.



I love it! (I think my husband is jealous.)

 I couldn't get back far enough to get a picture of the entire shelf in one pic


 this shows the extension on the left where I hang my purses

It doesn't bother me one bit that I have to go out there to get my clothes. Why?
I can see all my clothes at once. 
My blouses are on the top rack.
My jeans, sweaters, shawls and skirts are on the bottom rack.
They are not crowded and bunched up.

I found clothes that I didn't know I had when I dug them out from our 'cave' of a closet and hung them. Previously, my skirts, sweaters and shawls were stuffed in dresser drawers. I usually just picked one skirt from the top and wore it. And they were usually wrinkled. Now they are all hanging, nice and neat and wrinkle free, on my clothes rack. In fact, I wore a skirt on Sunday that I didn't even know I had until I hung it up on my new clothes rack.

The only garments I have left hanging in my closet are my dresses.

By doing this project, I emptied four drawers in our bedroom to store other items.

 

Do you have any closet pet peeves?

If you have somewhere to put one of these - do it! I think you'll like it.

Some ideas would be to make one for your out-of-season clothes or coats and jackets. If you have a nice and  neat garage (which we don't), laundry room, or extra room, you could put one there.

Posted by Janet Smart  on Writing in the Blackberry Patch.

8 comments:

  1. Now that's a nice way to store your clothes, Janet. Clever son, and thoughtful too.

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    1. Thanks, Susanne. He loves making things, and this was something he had never made before, so he jumped to the challenge.

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  2. Now aren't you the lucky one! The clothes rack is a wonderful idea. I guess my closet pet peeve would be the clothes my husband won't get rid of. His mother was an excellent seamstress and made lots of shirts and pants for her sons. She is gone now, and he won't part with those things, but rather has them in tubs in the bottom of his closet. In a way I understand, but he'll never wear them again; weight took care of a lot of that.

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    1. Hi, lil red hen. We have a lot of clothes that we won't throw away either. You are very creative, what you could do is make quilts using pieces from his clothes his mother made him. That way he could enjoy looking at them and not have them just sitting in tubs.

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  3. Our home is older and has very small closets, so hubby made me a clothes rack out of PVC pipe, suspended from the ceiling. I liked it so much, he made me a second...one for summer clothes and one for winter, just down the basement stairs in my laundry room.

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    1. That's a good idea, too, Linda. My son first mentioned PVC pipe, then went with pipe. He was going to suspend it from the ceiling, too, but changed his mind.

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  4. Good idea Janet. That looks like it will be a good thing.
    Nancy Jo

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  5. So, my son volunteered to build me a sturdy, steel clothes rack. I moved things around and found a spot large enough in my laundry/craft room ... rackdresses.blogspot.com

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